Timeless
by Aguna
Summary: Summary: kind of x-men crossover but really, just burrowing the idea of natural mutations in combination with my two favourite characters, no slash or smut just plot


Disclaimer: don't own

Summary: kind of x-men crossover but really, just burrowing the idea of natural mutations in combination with my two favourite characters, no slash or smut just plot

- now to work on the next chapter of a soldiers view^^

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He closes his eyes as he drinks the coffee, it is cold with too much sugar, with a sigh he leans back in the in the chair as the bitter-sweet mixture slides down his throat. He carefully avoids looking out of the window. For it feels as if there is more than glass separating him from the others, not just the mask he wears but something much more fundamental. Yet his self inflected isolation isn't perfect, the chair on the other side of the table had been claimed weeks ago, by the best and worst company at once, if he allowed himself the admittance.

They are sitting in silence each drinking their beverage, he lost in thought,while the other seems content to watch him.

His friends and family don't understand his actions, how he could lower his weapons not due illness or force but by choice. It's a sacrilege in their eyes, but when ever they ask for an explanation they get the same answer. _I'm thinking,_ and when they ask him to specify all they get is a far away look and the word _life_. They grew tired of asking, tired of him, and he tells himself that it is for the best. If all they see in him is a fighter who is tired and if that is enough reason for them to avoid his company, fine. He won't be used as a weapon, even if nature might have built him for it.

"Aren't I boring you?", asks the younger causally, for the first time acknowledging the man across him and takes another sip.

"You could never bore my Grayson", declares the other, mimicking his action, as his single grey eye makes contact with his blue ones.

There is a glint of anticipation in it. He could just stop talking and watch the glim dim again into patience, he doesn't.

"I haven't trained in weeks", he adds in the same tone, matching his relaxed body posture.

"I know, and you know that I know it", the voice sounds amused and Slade leans back in his chair. "You have been watching me watching you", he pauses and it grows serious, " you are waiting for something." The older man doesn't voice it as a question but he answers.

"I have been waiting for you to leave", a pause, "you haven't", an odd mix of resignation and relief in his voice and eyes.

A dangerous light inflames the single eye ,"unlike your dear little family and friends you mean", the words are spoken indifferently, "this is a test", the question-mark doesn't dare appear, Slade Wilson is no man who asks questions.

Dick takes another sip. Was it a test? It hadn't been meant to be one. The news had left him paralysed in the beginning and their reaction... . Did they ever think of him more than a weapon, a replaceable toy soldier? Tears gather in his eyes and he turns towards the window, away from Slade's searching gaze.

"What if I'm simply tired of fighting", he forces the question past his lips, "will you leave?" There the words were spoken out loud.

"I will never grow tired of your company", it sounds truthful and he looks at the older man.

"You told me more than once how alike we are", Dick starts, " why would you act like this", it sounds like challenge from his lips, one he hadn't meant to make, had he?

Slade pauses for a moment and takes a slow sip from his own cup to buy himself time. Finally something the older man has no direct answer for, a childish part of him rejoices for winning but he knows it is an unfair fight so he adds, " there has been news about mutations lately."

The older man goes deadly still, no visible sigh of his racing mind. Dick feels his blood pulsing throw his veins faster and faster. Slade put his cup away, the slight tremor of his hand betrays the storm within him.

"After the first power high ebbed away", the words sound empty , "once I was left with nothing but the realisation that my gifts could be a curse, not ageing while the world around you changes, helpless to watch my children die of old age. You can't help but ask yourself what is the point of living, of life."

The disbelief and wild hope are almost too much, yet he doesn't turn eyes away. Instead Dick takes a pocket knife from his pocket and cuts into his own arm. For a moment the wound is deep, it bleeds, but it is not enough to cover how the wounds seems to heal itself, a new layer of skin growing within seconds, leaving seemingly untarnished skin.

For the first time he knows Slade the other is speechless. "We are so alike", he offers, a faint note of hysterical laughter in his voice.


End file.
